Big data and computing

From the creation of the world wide web to mapping a billion stars with the Gaia mission, computing is changing our world.

Computers are all around us – they control the satellites that orbit our Earth and explore our solar system, they gave us the ability to find the Higgs boson in the immense amounts of data produced at the Large Hadron Collider, they model plasmas and proteins, crystals and hydrodynamics, creating a simulated world at our fingertips. STFC provides the computing and data storage needed by academics and industry, as well as pushing the boundaries of our knowledge by developing new software and coding.

LHC data processing

Building the Universe inside supercomputers

STFC’s Scientific Computing Department, together with the Met Office and the Natural Environment Research Council, are using our supercomputers at Hartree to develop the next generation weather forecasting model, to obtain the most accurate predictions possible.

We are using data analysis and computing techniques developed for astronomy to understand cancer better, spotting differences between tumour samples in cells.

Robotic telescopes, such as the Liverpool Telescope, are run by computers, with no human in control. The telescope has been programmed to take into account factors such as weather, power outages and atmospheric conditions and react to events as they occur.